


No One Really Ever Fell At All

by scratchienails



Series: Long Live the King (for a little while longer) [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Ace Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Crack Treated Seriously, Depression, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Luffy Is a Little Shit, Marineford Arc, Portgas D. Ace Lives, Roger crashes Marineford, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Very Very Mild, but not in the way you might expect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scratchienails/pseuds/scratchienails
Summary: By all rights, a short meeting between two women shouldn’t be enough to change the course of fate. But it is.In another time, another life, Portgas D. Rouge and Kouzuki Toki would never have met, and Gol D. Roger would never have been thrown twenty years into the future right before his destined execution.But they did meet, and he was.Crocus is just glad he has a cure for that supposedly incurable disease ready and waiting.(What if Roger lived, attempt 2)
Relationships: Gol D. Roger & Portgas D. Ace, Monkey D. Luffy & Portgas D. Ace
Series: Long Live the King (for a little while longer) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578277
Comments: 58
Kudos: 622





	1. Old Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【中文翻譯】No One Really Ever Fell At All](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27037174) by [陌音 (jasmine01702)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmine01702/pseuds/%E9%99%8C%E9%9F%B3)



> Kouzuki Toki's existence raises so many questions and yet here I am exploring how much of an incredible plot device she is.

“Roger says he only has a year left.” Rouge has her eyes on the fire, watching it burn. It's just the two of them for now, drinking on the edges of a rambunctious party. “If we do have a child, he’s never going to meet them.”

“Why not?” Toki says, before she can think better of it. “I could just toss him into the future for you.”

Rouge pauses, mid-sip. She stares at Toki over the rim of her tankard, her eyes reflecting the flickering candle-light. Swallowing with more force than probably necessary, Rouge opens her mouth, then clicks it shut. Toki takes some satisfaction in leaving such an unflappable woman speechless. 

It never gets old how incomprehensible her Devil Fruit is to people, even in this new era with big fancy ships with their own plumbing. 

And though she’s resolved herself to living here, in this time, for the rest of her days, she always feels the playful beckoning of the future at the back of her mind, just out of reach. _Why wait, why wait, you could be living tomorrow right now!_ She’s content, here in this moment, and willing to give up on seeing the future unfurl to see it all the way through. That doesn’t mean everyone else has to, either.

“I could send you too, you know. To a time when it's safer for you to have a baby.” It would be such an easy fix to Roger and Rouge’s concerns about Marine interference. What was the Navy going to do, kill all the babies born for the rest of time? As if. “I technically did it too! Back in my parent’s day, giving birth was way more dangerous, you know! Now you can do it on a ship and survive _twice!_ Amazing, huh?”

“Toki, please focus.” Rouge interrupts, with that smile of hers. She is the type of woman Toki has met all across the eras: the kind of woman that is always smiling, even when she isn’t feeling happy or friendly at all. A woman with ten-thousand different smiles, and almost no frowns.

Except, when she speaks of Roger’s imminent demise, she always frowns, even when Roger laughs.

“Would it be so bad?” Toki has her own smiles, but she’s different from Rouge. She only smiles when she feels like smiling, and right now, she does. “They won’t know to look for you in ten, thirty, fifty years. You can leave all of it behind.”

Rouge traces a long finger around the edge of her tankard, and when she replies, it's in a quiet but firm voice. “Like you did?”

It’s not a nice question, but it slides off Toki like the fancy soaps made these days. She doesn’t regret abandoning the era of her birth. There was nothing for her there, not when she knew she could see so much more. She was free: nothing in the world could prevent her from moving forward. Not wars or genocide or cullings, nor government or kingdoms or the heavens themselves.

Toki is still free. 

“I made the right choice, trust me.” She laughs, and Rouge smiles with her, this time the upturn of her lips much more genuine and warm. “I don’t think you’d regret it.”

“But this is a choice for another person, isn’t it.” Rouge shakes her head, blond hair spilling around her shoulders. “Roger would never choose this.”

Toki knows. She can see the course set in Roger’s eyes. And she wants to respect that, she _does_ , but when she imagines herself in Rouge’s shoes, the answer is obvious.

“It’s not about choice, though, is it? It’s about what’s right for the baby.” That was something she had to learn fast when she and Oden decided to become parents. Suddenly, her own wants seemed so inconsequential, in comparison to the needs of the little life growing inside her.

“I’m just as stubborn as Roger. I want to see this path I’ve chosen through to the end.” It is a refusal, plain and simple for all that it doesn’t contain any of the necessary words. Toki nods her head in deference to it, letting her eyes slide closed so Rouge could not see the disapproval in her gaze. Rouge’s voice continued on. “But I also want him to meet our child. I know it’s selfish, I know he wants to die his way, but…”

Toki can’t help herself. She’s never been good at holding her tongue. Honesty just comes more naturally, even when it shouldn’t. “There’s no guarantee there will be child for him to meet if you stay, Rouge.” 

It’s harsh, but true. Rouge glares, just a little, before casting her eyes away. “I have a chance. Roger doesn’t.” Rouge says, firmly, fiercely. “My baby will live. I’ll make sure of it. I just want them to have the chance to live to meet their father too.”

Tilting her head to the side, Toki asks, “How far?” 

* * *

The day of his execution, from the very platform he was set to die on, Gol D. Roger vanished from existence in front of an entire audience, mere breaths after making his final declaration to the world.

Chaos followed, but Toki didn’t feel too bad about it.

* * *

Crocus had been waiting for him when Roger woke up. That wasn’t unusual, except Crocus himself was. Roger’s friend had somehow managed to age decades since their parting, which didn’t make any sense at all. The result of a Devil Fruit, maybe?

Except then Crocus opened his mouth and said, “Welcome to the future, jackass.”

* * *

Rouge was dead.

“Lady Toki told me to be expecting you.”

Rouge was dead.

“So I’ve spent the past few years working on that disease of yours.”

Rouge was dead.

“Medicine has come a long way in such a short time, thanks to that Vegapunk. Congratulations, you’ve got a whole life to live.”

And Roger was alive.

“That is, if we do this right—are you listening?”

Roger did not want to do _this_ right. He did not want to do this at all.

* * *

“You want me to hide in a whale?”

“Ain’t got anywhere else to keep you. Also, we’re shaving that moustache. Too recognizable.”

* * *

Time passes. By all rights, Roger should be getting better, not worse.

But he’s made up his mind to die, so he’s damn well going to die.

* * *

“Roger!”

A shout of his name by an unfamiliar voice startles him awake, just in time to hear the following cannon fire whistling through the air outside. There’s two near simultaneous explosions, and then a shout that makes his blood run cold. 

“That old man jumped in the way!” The voices are unfamiliar and alarmed, echoing in through the open window.

“Could it be, he’s trying to protect the whale?!”

 _Crocus!_ _Laboon!_

Roger drags himself out of bed, cursing how even so little suddenly seems so impossible. On his shaking, weak limbs, he can only stumble towards the window, throwing out his awareness as best he can while the world spins.

Crocus is out in the stomach acid. Laboon feels fine, but there’s far more people inside his stomach than usual: all gathered up on what must be ship drifting alongside Crocus’s island. 

One of them is laughing, harsh and shrill. 

“Stop this pointless resistance already!”

“If you want to protect this whale so badly, go right ahead! We’re still going to turn it into food for our town!”

It’s those thugs again. And they’d brought reinforcements. Even worse, from the sound of things, Crocus had already taken a hit. 

He has to do something. Anything. But he barely finds the strength to clutch the window and peer out with blurry eyes. The ship is a caravel, modest in size and more than a little roughed up, and on its prow are a trio of people: the two thugs, and someone else.

Yellow, Roger notes as he squints over the green waves, yellow and red. 

Crocus is nearly limp in the acid, struggling to even keep himself afloat as laughter echoed through the whole stomach.

They’d opened fire on his friends, and they are laughing about it, and as the world started to tilt under his feet, Roger realizes there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.

He didn’t even have the strength for a burst of Conqueror’s _haki_ , let alone enough to energy to make it to their ship and put an end to their scornful mockery.

Since when?

Wasn’t he once the most powerful man on the seas? Was he not the man that mastered the impossible? 

Since when is Gol D. Roger such a helpless weakling? What is the point in living on if he couldn’t protect a single fucking thing? Not Rouge, not his child, not Oden or Toki, and now not even a friend before his very eyes?

Is this what he was sent here to see? How he failed everyone he loved?

A fist pounds into the thugs’ faces from either side, slamming their skulls together with a solid crack. The two of them go down like rocks, struck down in a single instant by the boy standing on the prow. 

Roger stares, relief and a sudden burst of amusement washing away the despair that had swept over him in a single instant. Slumping against the window frame, he can only weakly chuckle into the wood. It seems he misunderstood the situation, a little. That’s what he gets for sleeping through the important bits, he guesses. 

“I just… felt like hitting them.” The boy says, sounding like he was almost at a complete loss. 

Crocus is staring at the boy, Roger notices, equally flummoxed. 

The ship’s crew help Crocus out of the acid and come onto the island. They are a lively little bunch of teenagers, young and sprightly, and apparently not affiliated at all with the thugs they’d taken the liberty of tying up. 

Roger observes them through the window as he takes his medicine, helping himself to some tea to wash it down. The haze of sleep was finally wearing off, and he is steadier on his feet, and can lift the full mug without his hands shaking. No one has noticed him yet, so he takes his time looking over each of their visitors. There is a young woman with hair like orange rinds, a blond young man in a black suit, a taller man with hair the vivid green of moss, and another boy with a long nose. Lastly is the boy that could throw a mean punch, wearing a straw hat.

How nostalgic. Roger used to have a hat just like that.

...Just like that. Like, really, really just like that. 

Roger drops his mug and it shatters on the floor, but he barely notices, because that is his hat. 

That _is_ his hat!

“What was that?” 

All eyes turned in his direction, and Roger forces down his shock. He gives his best attempt at a casual wave, but it comes across more like hapless flapping than anything else. 

“Don’t mind him. That’s just Hodge.” Crocus says, glaring at Roger from his chair. His old friend is looking worse for wear and a little toasty around the edges, but otherwise unharmed. 

The boy with his straw hat is halfway up the palm tree, but his head turned impossibly around to stare at Roger, a contemplative furrow between his eyes. Roger knows that look, because he didn’t want to see it. It is the look of someone that think they recognized him, but just can’t put their finger on why. 

He stares right back, certain that he knows that hat. It is older and more worn, just like Crocus and Laboon, but undoubtedly the same. Last time he’d seen it, it had been on Shank’s head, where it had been since Shanks was just a little brat scampering around Roger’s feet. 

Is… is this Shank’s kid?

That doesn’t seem right. If anything, Roger feels like this boy reminds him of someone else. Those unfathomable black eyes, the strength he can put into a punch, the careless expression on his face as he coils around the tree like a monkey.

The clear, pure voice of his heart.

Just who is this child?


	2. Bearers of Good News

After being escorted out, the young captain picks a fight with Laboon, calls it off halfway, and promises to come back and finish it. 

Laboon is moved to tears. 

Roger wishes he thought of it first. 

But he supposes, Laboon hadn’t needed it, back when they first met; Laboon had been younger back then, and not nearly as scarred or desperate. And wasn’t that just the story of Roger’s life? Laughably too early to be of any use when it came down to the wire. 

And then there’s this rookie, right on time. Roger watches him, wearing the hat like it has always been his and grinning wider than his face. 

“What’s your name, kid?” He finally asks, catching the boy’s fleeting attention.

His answer comes with another brilliant grin. “Monkey D. Luffy!”

The name should come as a surprise, but it isn’t, not in the least. It’s like a puzzle piece clicking into place in his head, completing a suddenly perfect picture. Roger remembers being a young pirate, rubbing his head and the knot forming on top of it, glaring at a bare-armed marine with incomprehensibly dark eyes. 

_ “Now I know why you’re called the Fist…” _

_ “Tch! The name’s Monkey D. Garp! And don’t you forget it, you worthless pirate!” _

Garp!

This boy reminds him of Garp!

Well, it’s no wonder he hadn’t been able to realize it sooner. Garp was over two meters tall last Roger had seen him, and still a walking mass of muscle with shoulders wide enough to block halls. This boy, in stark contrast, doesn’t even have a third of Garp’s mass, and even then, he’s thin as a whistle. 

But he’s undoubtedly Garp’s scion, with those black eyes. Garp, who Roger entrusted with their secret. Garp, who promised to save his child. Garp, who probably thinks Roger is dead. If there is anyone in the world that might know what became of his child besides the bastard himself, it is this boy.

Roger forces himself to take a deep breath through the nose, fighting down the urge to grab the kid and shake the answers out of him. On the odd chance this Luffy does know  _ anything _ , he probably also knows to keep it top secret. Roger has to be casual about this. 

“Monkey… that sounds familiar. You got any family?” He fishes, trying to not look unnaturally invested in the answer. 

Luffy, thankfully, doesn’t seem remotely suspicious. He blinks at Roger, that blank look so much like Garp’s in his youth that Roger almost feels the physical impact of nostalgia in his gut. “Just Grandpa and my big brother.” 

Said grandpa  _ has _ to be Garp. Which meant Garp really procreated, or something. Now there is something Roger never wanted to have to think about. But, the brother… 

He probably is a biological brother. No, he’s  _ almost  _ definitely a biological brother, there’s no reason to think otherwise. Roger knows that, but still his mouth creaks open and he can’t help but ask: “Brother? What’s his name?”

He doesn’t dare to hope. But if there is even just a chance—

“Ace! He’s the coolest!”

Inside his chest, his heart is beating too fast. His eyes are burning. There is a tightness about his mouth, but he can’t figure out if it is a smile or a sob as he grinds his teeth in the face of it. 

Ace. Just like he and Rouge had decided, if their baby was a boy. If their baby was born at all. 

It can’t possibly be a coincidence. 

That old fool Garp, he really did it! He really fucking did it! 

Ace is alive! 

Ace made it! And has a family! A life! A baby brother that thinks he is the coolest! 

Ace is out there! Right now!

And Roger can  _ meet  _ him. 

Not right away, because he is a  _ mess _ and hasn’t been taking his medicine properly and couldn’t muster up enough  _ haki _ to knock out a cockroach, let alone two weakass idiots with bazookas. He’d fix all that, as soon as physically possible; get back on his feet and back out to sea and get back his son.

Just thinking about it makes him all jittery, impatience crawling over his skin. Any time at all seems like too much time, especially considering all the time he’d already wasted. He wants to see Ace as soon as he can! 

And yet, he can barely stand and hold a conversation with a runt. Luffy has Garp’s smile, all sunny and ferocious in equal measure, but the expression has faded as he looks at Roger, eyes too discerning for being so devoid of thought.

Even though Roger is sure his face betrays nothing of the emotions swelling inside of him, it’s like the boy can see it plain as day. But he doesn’t comment, just sitting quietly as Roger tames the hurricane of feelings in his chest.

Finally in control, Roger looks back at him and lets an easy grin pass over his face. “Oh yeah? Prove it! What’s he like?”

He can’t go to Ace right away, but for now, he can have this.

* * *

“I’m going to be King of the Pirates!” Luffy had said, bolder than anything. It flummoxed those that questioned him, but he took the two thugs with him anyway. Watching them sail off, departure echoing with Laboon’s grateful warbles, Roger finds himself grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

He’d figured his last words would send hundreds, if not thousands, to the Grand Line, chasing his legacy. But it’s one matter to know something theoretically, and it’s a complete another to hear someone else actually say it, so brazen and sure.

And not to mention, those blasphemous words came out of Garp’s  _ grandson. _

Maybe it was a fair trade after all. Garp got his Ace, and somehow, he got Garp’s brat. 

“I wonder if they’re the pirates we’ve been waiting for, all this time…” Crocus smiles, not looking away from the spot on the horizon even once. “That man has such an uncanny air about him.”  _ Man, _ Crocus says like he’s not talking about a snot-nosed seventeen year-old that’s barely gotten his sealegs. There’s respect in it, genuine and fond despite how brief their meeting had been. “Don’t you think, Roger?” 

Well, Roger isn’t going to argue it. Uncanny, that certainly is a word for such a vivacious chaotic spirit.

The one that would surpass him… 

Only time would tell, but Roger can feel it in his bones, like a voice resonating within him, as if the very world, from the stones to the setting sun, is singing with perfect harmony. 

_ This is the one, _ he thinks, despite himself. 

He’s glad he got to meet him, but he never once thought the one Laugh Tale is destined for would come from  _ Garp’s _ family. It seems ironic. After everything, knowing all he did about the Will of D and the initial they both carried in their names, part of Roger thought Garp an unwitting traitor to their ancestors, serving the whims of those that would eventually turn on him and his family. But another part of him wondered if that  _ that _ in and of itself was a rebellion of his own; maybe Garp was so dedicated to his idea of justice he would not even let their natural enemies keep him from pursuing it. 

Or maybe, Garp simply hoped that if he and his blood bowed their heads, they’d be spared. 

He’d put all those thoughts aside in his desperation to save Ace and gambled on the initial they shared, hoping against all good sense that Garp would defy the world to save an innocent life. 

But regardless of Garp’s choices, justice, and servitude, his own flesh and blood could very well be  _ the _ pirate that will bear all that history on his back and challenge the whole world.

The more Roger thinks about it, the funnier the whole thing seems. 

Unable to contain his mirth, he can’t help but laugh. “Looks like we might get to see the dawn after all.”

Crocus raises an eyebrow at him. “Oh, I thought you were dying?”

“Aw, shut up!”

“Wait, are you crying?” 

Mid-laugh, he realizes it’s true, he  _ is  _ crying. Tears are dripping down his face, and he must look ridiculous, chuckling through them. But there’s tracks down Crocus’s face too.

“So are you!”

“I’m happy for Laboon.” Crocus snorts. “What are you getting all snotty for?”

“He’s out there, Crocus.”

“Who?” His old friend’s bushy eyebrows creep higher. “Monkey D. Luffy? Yeah, we just met him.”

Well, him too, but that’s not what fills Roger’s heart with breathless relief. He hadn’t known  _ who _ it would be, but he’d known with complete surety that eventually there would be someone who’d fulfill the promise. It’s no surprise he exists, here in this era.

But he hadn’t been so sure about Ace.

“My son.” Roger breathes, and he can barely bear it. His heart seems to be swelling right out of his chest. “My son is alive!” Just getting to  _ say _ it seems like such a blessing. But he doesn’t just know that now, he knows so much more. Luffy hadn’t been easy to coax anything coherent out of, but what he did get was  _ perfect. _ “My son is alive and he’s got his mother’s freckles and my hair! His name is Ace and he’s a pirate! He’s the coolest guy you’ll ever meet, and strong too!”

Crocus stares at him, not nearly as surprised or impressed as he should be.

“Yeah, no shit.” He huffs. “Portgas D. Ace, the Firefist.”

Roger snaps his head around and gapes. “You knew him this whole time?! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Mutiny! Mutiny against the captain, that was! What kind of thing to forget to tell him was that!

Crocus crosses his arms, mouth tilted so far down it threatened to fall right off his face. “If I told you, you would have run off to find him without getting better and get yourself killed! You’re in no state for the New World!”

Alright, fair. Roger hasn’t exactly been on top of his game. But,  _ still! _

“I would have gotten better faster!”

“That’s not how medicine works, you jackass!” Crocus snaps at him, nearly throwing his hands in the air but stilling before that. He heaves a sigh instead, and waves Roger back towards their unholy island-boat monstrosity. 

“Firefist Ace, huh?” Roger tests the sound of it as he follows. “That’s a cool name…Do you know anything else about him?”

Crocus gives him a long, piercing look, letting it hang in the air with the pause in the conversation. It’s the same damn gag as always. 

“Well, I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this…”

“Just spit it out!” 

“Firefist Ace is the second division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.”

“...eh?” Roger blinks. “Who is?”

“Ace is.”

“Ace is what?”

“One of Whitebeard’s commanders.”

Ace is… one of Whitebeard’s commanders. 

“Crocus…” Roger starts slowly, making sure each word is clear. “Are you telling me that Whitebeard stole my son?”

“Well, you know what they say.” Crocus shrugged. “What goes around comes around.  _ Someone _ had to take Oden’s spot eventually, you know.” 

_ Oden. _

That’s right. Whitebeard  _ did _ need a new second division commander. Because,  _ because _ of Roger’s stupid, selfish,  _ pointless _ last adventure, Oden died.

And Wano was ruined. 

It's not easy to think about the price of his final journey, not when what waited at the end of the line wasn’t even theirs to claim. He didn’t regret a moment of it, not a single breath, but at the same time, living to see the actual, tangible consequences, when he thought he’d be too dead to even consider them, tasted so very bitter on his tongue.

Careful eyes measuring the drop in his mood, Crocus clicks his tongue and drops a bundle of papers upon the table. 

“Here, I’ve been holding onto these for you.” He says, spreading all the worn papers out. “They’re all of Ace’s bounties since he first became a pirate three years ago.”

And just like that, Roger sees his son for the first time.

Just like Luffy had said, Ace has his mother’s freckles and a roguish smile. His hair’s black and wavy, just like Roger’s own, and though he has Rouge’s nose, he’s got Roger’s jawline. Roger picks up the papers, one by one, eyes raking over the identical picture on each like he didn’t see the last. If only the Marines updated the photos more often, more carefully, he could have seen three years of Ace’s life laid before his eyes. 

He hugs the papers close and tries to imagine a baby in his arms, warm and alive; then, an ill-behaved toddler, a moody preteen, a polite teenager, a successful young man. He wanted to hold them all and never let go.

“Fix me.”

“Hm?” Crocus hums, watching him. 

“Fix me.” The words come shockingly easily as he seizes the doctor by the shoulders. “I want to live, Crocus! I want to meet my son!” He can’t help but shake Crocus a little, burning with impatience. “Cure me!”

In hindsight, he should have expected Crocus clocking him in the jaw.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do this whole time?!”

Rubbing his chin, Roger can’t help but laugh some more. “Ah, you’re right…” 

For a moment, they lapse back into quietness, watching the sunset and Laboon, who is still happily chirping towards the horizon, bearing the messy jolly roger painted over his scars with clear elation and careful reverence. It’s probably unnecessary. The paint will stick; it’s the same stuff Crocus used to paint Laboon’s stomach, after all, but Roger’s not going to tell Laboon that. 

It’s amazing that something so small can stop someone from hurting,  _ killing, _ themself.

His own relief pales in comparison to Crocus’s. The doctor’s grizzled face has slackened in a way Roger’s never known it to, some of the grief and worry weathering it finally easing away. 

“You sure took a shining to those kids, huh?” Roger can’t help but tease. “Even gave ‘em a Log Pose. I’m surprised you didn’t just give them Laugh Tale on a silver platter!”

“Can’t be helped…” Crocus rubs away a tear, utterly shameless. “They helped out two friends of mine, just like that. They’re a good bunch.”

“Two?” Roger wonders aloud. “Besides Laboon here, who else did they help?” 

“Just an idiot I know.”

For the first time since the day he’d thought would be his death, Roger goes to sleep looking forward to tomorrow.

* * *

“…Can you believe Garp has had  _ sex? _ ”

“Now,  _ that _ should be illegal.”


End file.
